A little reverse logic and other odd bits

I've come across something down here that just doesn't make sense at first. When one is hot, you want a cold shower right? (now if you're Megan it'd be warm not scalding as usual). The idea being cooler water to cool you down. The thing is down here that logic does not work. Trust me, I've tried it again and again. "What's not to work about this?" you ask? Well you take a cold shower, which does feel REALLY great, but the second you hop out your body goes into shock due to the massive temperature increase and starts sweating profusely. Note this all happens in less time then it takes for you to even grab your towel to start drying off. So you finish a nice cold shower only to be covered in sweat... again. Even though it sounds crazy I've learned to take (fairly) hot showers. It's not exactly inviting but getting your self warmer makes the air feel cooler when you get out. It's a little bit of madness but the reverse logic works well. I get a good... oh.. 2 minutes or so before i am covered in sweat, which is much nicer then the .002 seconds with a cold shower. :) If you go straight from the hot shower (dry off) then just flop onto your bed, you can get a good 10 or 15 minutes of dry skin. The act of getting dressed always works up a good sweat. Aren't the tropics fun?
Jumping tracks to a totally different topic, I get asked many times what time zone Grenada is in. When I mention that it's in the Atlantic time zone, which is EST +1, everyone seems to be confused. Everyone pictures the entire lot of Caribbean islands directly south of Florida and curving west from their. Sorry to burst all your bubbles but your way off! To facilitate explaining this I took a snapshot of stormpulse.com's website because it does a good job of showing the US and all the little islands. (Note that the little spec of sand and dirt we live on is smaller then the bullet point to label it... comforting?) So see below...
You might have to click on it to enlarge it to see the details but essentially i drew a circle around NYC and drew a line straight down. As you can see Grenada (also in a red circle) is FAR to the east, hence the next time zone over. So does it make sense now? Hopefully it does... if not grab your self a globe with time zones on it, if THAT doesn't work then just forget it, those two or three brain cells left are probably put to better use.
The red circle on the far left of the US is about where Ventura/Santa Barbara CA is, our second home.
Oh and as you've probably noticed the large Gustav hurricane in the middle of the picture. This is as of 11pm Sat night. Gustav only gave us a tiny bit of rain and nothing interesting other then that. SGU and many others said Grenada is too far south for most the hurricanes and I am finding it to be very true. Everything seems to form off the coast of Africa at about 16 degrees north, near the Cape Verde Islands, then it moves west/north-west. Grenada is at 12 degrees north which means everything starts above us and moves further north. Very little to worry about. As strange as it sounds I do actually hope for SOME minor storm activity our way because the rain feels GREAT and drops the temps quite a bit.

Update: One thing I forgot to mention about the time zone difference. In Grenada, we don't observe Daylight Savings. So during the summer months when EST moves forward an hour we are at the same time, (such as right now). Come October when the time changes again for the US we'll be an hour ahead of EST.

Vehicle License

As many SGU students have found, it is very helpful to have a car around Grenada. Back in March Megan and I made the choice to purchase a Suzuki Escudo (aka Sidekick with right hand drive). I noticed when we purchased this little SUV that there was a good size sticker on the front windshield with an expiration date of June 30th clearly marked on it. As the end of our stay for term 1 came up I inquired about how to get our car re-registered before we left so it wasn't expired when we returned. I was told "You can't register a car early, do it when you come back." With this in mind we took off for CA thinking when we came back it'd be no big deal to get this taken care of.
Thursday (we flew in Wednesday) we drove over to the police station to get our drivers permits renewed. With how relaxed all of Grenada's laws are we didn't really see anything wrong with this. (Although it wasn't the smartest move we've made). We hadn't even gotten out of the car yet at the station when the fun began. A man approached us wearing jeans and an un-tucked polo shirt. People often try to make a buck buy 'assisting' tourists with common tasks in lou of a fee. Since we both already knew what to do to get our permits we tried to brush this guy off but he kept on rambling on in a sort of way which made me think he was more likely speaking Swahili then English. I did notice after a bit though that he started pointing at our 2007 registration sticker.... wait for it.. OH right of course! Then I noticed the words FINE and FEES coming out of his mouth. Feeling rather stuck and not sure whether to follow this guy or hop in our car and run the other way we chose to follow him into the police station as he didn't seem angry or show any intent to do us wrong. We got our permits to drive no problem. This guy speaking some local variation of English walk talking a million miles a minute to the police officers behind the counter. Eventually (after a LOT of talking), I finally figured out that when the "license sticker" NOT a "registration sticker" has expired Grenadian Police take is EXTREMELY seriously. "THAT VEHICLE IS NOT TO BE DRIVEN ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" What also came out of our uh.. discussion... was that we had to DRIVE the car to be inspected, and the inspection place closed in less then 15 minutes. So I can't drive it anywhere, but to get it licensed i must drive it... eventually it came out that the police must write me formal permission to drive my car from one location to the inspection location and back home with specific time limits. After getting this permission I asked "OK after I get it inspected, then what?" They said "DRIVE IT HOME AND PARK IT!!", followed by the previous rant of not driving the car anywhere. The police told me I had to walk back down to the police station Friday morning to get ANOTHER permission from them to drive the car to the Carenage (15 minute drive north near the capitol) to pay for the sticker and pick up the sticker.
Megan and I zoomed off to the inspection thankful they didn't fine us for driving around in such a DANGEROUS car. Obviously any car with an expired license is likely to explode at any second killing thousands. We got the car inspected at what was a typical Grenadian style joint. Picture a warehouse with a few broken down cars parked at odd angles and brush growing up through the hoods and interior. Then add the general scene of a chop-shop, add a some rust, and throw in one large black man with his feet up on a desk leaning back watching a "LIVE FOX News! AMAZING CAR CHASE!!". Some moron in Texas decided he didn't want to stop when the cops wanted him to and this Grenadian Inspection guy had a hard time un-gluing his eyes from this spectacle to even acknowledge we were there.
The inspection went fine other then our horn not working which is odd as it worked perfectly fine prior to our departure, (and started working again today). We drove back to the police station since our permission didn't expire for another 45 minutes. I showed them the green inspection report and that everything had passed after a police lady took it from us looked it up and down with her nose in the air. I asked if I could get permission to drive the car to get the sticker tomorrow morning. The police refused again and again, "we can NOT give permission today for tomorrow".... my reply "but the permission is hand written with the date and time frame the permission is valid for?" They didn't care. Eventually one more mellow police officer chimed in (I think sensing the stupidity in this) and said "sorry it's just protocol". So we left annoyed.
I got up early-ish Friday since I had a work meeting at 11 which I was hosting. I rode my bike back down to the police station to get the permission to drive to get the license sticker. I was greeted by a new group of officers. In their typical fashion they accuse me of doing everything wrong until I prove otherwise, and even then they look at me with contempt and suspicion. I was asked immediately "HOW DID YOU GET HERE!" I replied, "with the bike parked right there". (the sweat dripping from my forehead, the nice three ridges of hair which my helmet formed, and the sweat everywhere else apparently wasn't enough indication). "WHY! do you want permission?!?" We continued round and round for a while and eventually got to the point where this police man just didn't feel like giving me permission. He told me to walk, or take a bus. "Why don't you ride your bike?" me, "because it's a long ways and I was told to come back here to get permission from you". He never gave me permission. I turned around and left frustrated and saying something along the lines of "this is REALLY stupid" which was followed by a shout out "WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!"

The laws in Grenada are simply each police person's opinion. They may be written down but that doesn't matter because no one would ever bother to reference them. Every cop has the authority to dictate the law as they see fit, or to what fits there mood. This guy apparently felt lazy and didn't like me so he was a pain in the ass.

The ONE good piece of information I got out of this encounter was that the office with the stickers closed at 3pm, just enough time for me to finish my meeting and catch a Reggie bus to the Carenage.

When I arrived at the appropriate building in the Carenage I asked at the front desk on the first floor, where do I go for the license stickers? She kindly replied second floor. Thanking her we went up stairs and I was quickly reminded that there are two main areas up stairs as this is the same place I had paid for the transfer of title in March. Megan stood in line for us as I went back down stairs to get clarification since the line was LONG and slow moving. "Do we stand in the line up front or go around back to the offices?" When I was here in March we stood in line only to find out we should have got straight to the back offices first. She said, "go straight to the offices". Great! so I went back upstairs, pulled Megan out of line and we went to the back offices. We found the correct unlabeled desk and asked about a license sticker. "You need to stand in line and pay for it first, then come back to me." ugh... OK so back to the front we went. We waited in line for about 45 minutes, paid the license fee which was $260 EC... about $100 USD. While paying we noted a sign on the glass "$500.00 fine or 3 MONTHS prison time for expired registration... EEEK!!! We got the sticker and I noticed the expiration still said June 30th. I asked why and he said "You're LATE!" I asked "Well I was gone all summer and I was told I could not pay early. Can I pay this early next summer so I am not late next time?" The reply, "You can only pay between May 16th and June 30th." Me, "can I move the due date to be earlier so I can pay it on time?", "No."
So NOW I get it, Grenada has so many levels of bureaucratic "protocols" that no one has any idea why they are the way they are (nor do they care), nor any authority to question them (much less change them).
We now know the hoops to jump through, regardless of how silly they may be Grenada's police force apparently takes auto insurance, and license stickers VERY seriously. As a side note though hopping into the drivers seat with an open bottle of beer in your hand is totally A-OK, as is hanging off the back of any vehicle driving down the road. Drinking at any age is apparently totally acceptable. Cars that spew out more smoke then a coal power plant get the green thumb, and vehicles which generally look like they are about to fall into a million pieces pass inspection year after year.

It must be a Grenada specific requirement for all cars, a self destruct mode which activates with an expired license sticker. This of course would cause far more devastation they the hundreds of drunk drivers or people hanging off of cars.

It could have turned out much worse, but it still wasn't exactly a walk in the park either.

ahh the Caribbean life, isn't it great?!

Grenada Take 2!

Term 2! Second term on the little spec of dirt in the Carribean.
First impressions? HOLY CRAP IT'S HOT!!! So we left fairly well adjusted to the temperatures down here, returning after three months in relatively cool CA the adjustment back into Grenada's temperatures and humidity has been hard on our systems. The last term, aka the "dry season", varied in temperature from about 78-83 and around 60% humidity. Comparatively we are now in the "wet season" and the temps are 81-88 and humidity 65-100%. (so far, three days into our stay here) So the numbers indicate only a slight change yet it seems like a massive difference.
It was REALLY nice to come back to an apartment already setup and waiting for us, we had to pay rent over the summer which stunk but having all our stuff setup ahead of time was GREAT!
On the flight down here in January we watched with amazement as lots of SGU students sat very relaxed on the plane and chatted as if they were just traveling to the next city over, not thousands of miles around the globe onto an underdeveloped island in the Caribbean which had been major political unrest only 15 years prior, and devastated by Hurricane Ivan only four years prior. Now we get it. Although traveling makes Megan and I quite anxious we were far more relaxed and looking forward to getting "home".
Although Grenada is more "normal" now, it still ceases to amaze us and make us laugh. For example the first night out walking the dogs I came across a snail. "OK, so what?" you say. Well apparently in Grenada snails get a LOT bigger then in CA. The snail was just mozzing along through the grass. In what has become a normal blogging fashon the first thought I had was "Quick get a picture of this thing!"
As you can see above this thing was pretty darn big. The snail wasn't too fond of being picked up and hauled off his slimy path which probably took him hours to progress to. He's mostly up inside his shell in this photo but as you can see by my hand being right behind him, he's about 4 inches long and almost two inches in diameter. That's one BIG slime trail.

Remember that shower head I mentioned in one of my very first bloggs about Grenada? Well the fun hasn't ended. The shower head is designed to be threaded onto the water pipe so that it faces perfectly straight down. Whom ever installed it threaded it incorrectly and pointed it slightly down and towards the back wall, which convienetly has a faucet pointing out of it right at hip level. This made getting any part of our bodies from the hip level down wet quite a yoga act. Megan and I decided to ask again to see if we could get this fixed. "Oh sure no problem, how did you deal with that before?!?"... So while we were out the Electrician came and uh "fixed it". Now because it has 240V DC wired directly to it they called an electrician, even though the problem really has to do with the plumbing. Either way we returned to find our shower head looking like this...
At this point you might be saying "ok i don't get the hose thing but it looks ok to me." Lets take a closer look.
As you can see by the red lines it's still far from 90 degrees. At the point of this picture the shower head was still totally clogged up so the water fell with very poor pressure mostly straight down. I have NO idea how or why the Electrician thought it was a good idea to put the hose (see blue arrow) on the FRONT side of the shower head. This makes it impossible to actually get under the shower head to get wet. This used to be on the back side facing the wall with the faucet. Also note our favorite faucet in the red circle to which our hips bump into constantly.
So partially fixed one problem and caused another... ugh. This is when the engineer side in me takes over. Forget asking for help, if you want it done right do it your self. I took off the face of the shower head cleaned it out (see sand and other roof stuff, remember water recycling post?), and put it on with the hose facing backwards as it should be. Of course by unclogging it now the water pours through as it should with higher pressure and is right up against that lovely faucet again... lol! You've gotta just laugh or you'll go crazy. One of these days I'll get the courage up to just take the whole thing off, unwire it and do it all over, but until then we take Yoga Showers.
We're looking forward to another fun term in Grenada!

Summer Blur

I find myself sitting here on the same couch I did when I posted the last blog over three months ago. To say the last three months were a blur is an understatement. Megan and I flew back home to CA back in May (shortly after the turtle post). We stayed in my grandparents house since they spend the summers back in MI. It worked out quite nicely. Megan worked at Banfield this summer, which is a large corporate vet clinic chain that rents space inside Pet Smart. She grew to REALLY love her coworkers and the animals she worked with. Her feelings on their corporate protocols was a little less then excited but regardless it was a great summer job and good experience. It's funny having a wife as a Vet student, dinner discussions were usually about what color fluid projected out of this dog, or what psycho mental issue that cat had. I always knew it had been a good day when she'd come home with a big smile followed by "Guess what I did today!!!!". Her favorite days were when she got to draw blood and/or place a catheter. She was obviously born to be a vet, personally stabbing poor helpless little furballs and sucking out their blood isn't MY idea of a good time, but she seems to enjoy it. ;)
One of the highlights of the summer went about like this... Megan was at Banfield, near her last day. She mentioned to the techs (or "Pet Nurses" as Banfield calls them), that she thought it was odd that she was one of the only employees there that did not have a tattoo. "I am such a wuss I don't even have my ears pierced!". This last comment got everyone quite excited, immediately all the needles of various gauges came out and Megan's blood pressure sky rocketed. The staff "We've got sterile needles and Lidocaine!... We could strap you down to the surgery table!... What? You don't trust a Vet?" Megan left work an hour early that day after running around with her hands over her ears all day. (Her face bright red of course). There was talk of possibly buying a piercing gun and bringing it to the spa party that the staff was going to that following Saturday. Megan freaked. She's always wanted her ears pierced but never had the guts to get it done. We were perusing the local mall for other reasons when we decided to stop by one of the piercing kiosks. Our intentions were to purchase a set of earrings that could be used in a gun so she would at least have ones she liked if they did have a gun at the party. Unfortunately we could not purchase them because they came in some sort of spring loaded cartridge which was a liability. I threw out the option "Well... you could just get it done right now and not have to worry about it anymore..." Megan was still freaked but still more freaked about the idea of her friends who are not "professional ear piercers" puncturing holes into her body. "Well, I would have to have your mom here..." My mom who is always busy dropped everything she was doing and was by my side in just a few minutes. Megan feeling the pressure said Yes. She picked out some cute pink flower studs and sat down in the kiosk. They had two people there and two guns so they pierced both of her ears at once. With a "1, 2, 3, CLICK" it was done. She turned to face me with a slight frown of "well that didn't feel good but it didn't hurt THAT much" she turned her whole upper body to face me. She was stiff as if they had just performed major neck surgery. I laughed but was very happy to see she finally did it. I figured it we got past the wedding without her piercing her ears then it would never happen. That was a very exciting day, followed by a few days of ear ring shopping... lol. I did ask for it so no complaints here.
Another major event of the summer was Megan's sister Crystal got married on August 9th in Santa Barbara. We had a lot of fun at the wedding and reception. It was a casual relaxed event with good food and good times.
Now I find myself sitting on this same (hard) couch wondering "did we really spend three months back there?" it was too fast to comprehend.

The whole time we were in CA though we missed our home, Grenada.